50 Little Monsters
by GirlOfLetters
Summary: A collection of 50 drabbles based on a list of one-word prompts. #4 Last - Dean after the credits roll on the season 3 Christmas episode.
1. 1 Motion

**Author's Note:** Hey, folks, I'm new to SPN fics but I'm a huge fan of the show so I figured what the hell. This going to be 50 drabbles from a list of one-word prompts which I've seen people use in other fandoms (Inner Angels and Guardian Demons which is a Good Omens fic is one of my favourites). Anyway, hope you enjoy and please, leave me a review! Like any author, the more reviews I get, the more excited I'll be about writing and the quicker I'll post :)

 **#1 Motion**

Dean's fifth birthday had come and gone without anyone noticing, including Dean himself. He'd only just grasped the concept of calendars recently and he'd been very excited at first, figuring out what day it was and pointing it out on the calendar. They'd had a little sticker of a hippo with a party hat stuck inside the white square that showed January 24th. Sammy's picture was on May 2nd and it was an elephant blowing candles. They'd had other stickers for things like Christmas and New Year, too and Dean had counted that there were five days between Christmas and New Year. But then that bad thing had happened to Mom and Dean had forgotten all about calendars. It didn't matter anyway because time had frozen. They didn't have a house anymore so they were living in a motel room – Dad, Sammy and him – and it was always the day after the bad thing happened. He woke up with the TV on and Dad doing push-ups. He had some cereal for breakfast although sometimes the milk went off and they had to all go out and get new milk. Then he watched TV until the TV ran out of children's shows and then he played with Sammy until lunch which was usually a peanut butter sandwich (with the crusts on because Dad didn't cut them off and Dean didn't feel brave enough to ask). Then more TV or playing with some toys their former neighbours had brought. Sometimes he asked to go outside and sometimes Dad agreed and they went behind the motel and Dean kicked a ball around for a while. Dad didn't kick the ball with him but he stood there with Sammy in his pram and he watched. He never left them alone or with somebody else and Dean was glad. Most evenings they had dinner in a nearby diner. There were Christmas decorations there for a while and then they disappeared and Dean never quite figured out which day had been Christmas. Dad bought him a toy truck but it wasn't wrapped as a present so Dean wasn't sure if it was for Christmas or not. Dad let the radio play when they went to bed to help them fall asleep and he sat in the corner and drank from his bottle didn't was not meant to touch. Sometimes 'Hey Jude' would come on and Dean would have to run to the bathroom and stay there for a while because he didn't want to cry in front of Sammy. Sometimes Sammy woke up in the middle of the night and Dean was woken too by his voice but sometimes Dean woke up on his own to find Dad hugging Sammy and talking quietly - so quietly that Dean couldn't hear what he was saying. He wished Dad would do the same with him but he didn't dare ask. Somehow he thought Dad would be mad if he even knew Dean had seen him and Sammy like that so he just pretended to be asleep.

Then one day while he was kicking the ball outside, a lady asked him how old he was and he said four. Dad blinked, and frowned a little and shook his head.

"Five. You're five and one month."

Dean stared at him, confused, because he didn't remember turning five. He hadn't had a birthday and you couldn't grow up if you didn't have a birthday. Dad almost looked confused, too, like he had just woken up. They had extra pancakes at the diner that evening.

The next morning Dad woke him up instead of just waiting for Dean to wake up and their bags were all packed and they got into their car and drove away. Dean couldn't stop bouncing with excitement and he looked out of the car window until it was dark and he fell asleep on the back seat because time was moving again and they were moving and he was getting bigger and Sammy was also getting bigger and soon he would be big enough to kick the ball with him. They weren't frozen anymore.


	2. 2 Wrong

**Author's Note:** Obviously, I don't own Supernatral. A always, pleasse leave a review, they are very very much appreciated!

 **#2 Wrong**

In the year when he'd thought Sam was in Hell, Dean had spent countless sleepless nights staring at the ceiling of Lisa's bedroom, biting his fist so that he wouldn't make a sound and just repeating the word 'please' over and over in his head, as if he couldn't even make himself fully formulate what he was begging for.

Please, save my little brother?

Please, protect him from pain?

Please, bring him back?

Please, don't let me be alone like this?

Lisa was amazing, she really was, but despite her efforts she didn't – couldn't possibly – understand how much Dean revolved around Sam, even at the best of times. He had tried so hard all his life to protect his family, he'd taken hits, he'd given up everything he could, he'd gone to Hell, and in the end he had still failed. He had failed in the most spectacular way. And on top of the guilt, on top of the unspeakable horror of imagining what must be happening to his brother in Hell, there had been that profound, consuming sense of loneliness which had always engulfed him every time they had become separated. He had dreamed of Sam coming back, dreamed of it almost every night. It was worse than nightmares. He'd imagined himself hugging his brother and not letting go for days, imagined himself breaking down and not caring who saw or what they thought, if only he could have him back. He'd prayed to God because surely this was within the bastard's power if he'd brought Castiel back from the dead. If had seemed like if only he could have Sam again everything would be right with the world. But the months had passed and Sam remained gone. On the fifth month Dean had dropped his fork in his plate in the middle of dinner, left the table without a word, taken the Impala and driven for two hours before stopping on a deserted road and quietly breaking down. Sam had now officially been down there longer than Dean and somehow that confirmed that he would stay there forever.

And then Sam had come back and Dean hadn't burst in tears. He didn't know why but he had sensed from the start something wasn't right. Something was preventing him from being completely relieved, some malicious voice was telling him that he didn't really have his brother back. When he had last seen him before Sam had thrown himself into the pit, they had seemed to share such a deep connection, such a strong family bond, and now the younger Winchester was cold and distant even when he was pretending not to be. He hadn't seemed so detached even in his Stanford years when, the few times he had called, Dean could detect boiling anger and hurt beneath the sulking and the feigned indifference.

Now Dean was sitting with his head in his hands, stomach still cramping from the horrible vampirism cure, every muscle in his body aching and a tightness in his chest which had little to do with the physical aftermath of his ordeal. His brother had let him be taken. Dean knew it in his heart, no matter how much he tried to rationalise it, to come up with an explanation. His brother… if that was his brother at all. He didn't know which idea was worse – that this wasn't really Sam… or that it was. He rubbed at his eyes, suddenly overtaken by and overwhelming desire to see Ben and Lisa and pretend that they were somehow his because nothing else was anymore. He was supposedly among family and he had rarely felt more alone.

Everything was wrong.


	3. 3 Young

**Author's Note:** Please, support my frieds' attempt to bring an all-original Supernatural musical to the stage and to youtube! projects/supernatural-the-parody-musical/x/13051454#/

Also, is now the time to mention this will probably have spoilers for all seasons?

 **#3 Young**

Rationally, Castiel had, of course, been familiar with the concept of youth but he hadn't quite understood how it felt until now. Now that he was human it was beginning to down on him that there was more to it than age. After all, his vessel wasn't all that young – not for a human, anyway - but he felt… eager. And somehow hopeful and curious in a way he hadn't quite experienced these emotions in while he was still an angel.

Then there was sex. And, of course, sex was… Castiel was convinced sex had something to do with this youthful feeling, too. Maybe that was why Dean liked it so much. As far as he knew, sexual activity did not biologically delay aging but he was beginning to think perhaps he didn't know very far. Castiel was rather proud that he had finally managed to 'do it' with April after all the times Dean had prompted him but he was also secretly upset that the first girl he had slept with had turned out to want him dead. It had been rather nice to feel… desired. It was frustrating that it hadn't been real. Perhaps he should have been able to tell if she was 'faking'? Would Dean have been able to tell? Another part of youth was inexperience. Based on that, he may have been a very old angel but he was a very young human indeed. Perhaps he would be able to get better with practice and pick women to sleep with who weren't enemies and didn't have hidden motives. After all, Sam was younger than Dean and he'd ended up sharing a bed with a monster several times but not so much in later years…

Humans were complicated. Perhaps that was why they had to go through the process of maturing – because unless all the intricacies of being human were learned gradually, they might make one's brain explode.


	4. 4 Last

**Author's Note:** Please, support my frieds' attempt to bring an all-original Supernatural musical to the stage and to youtube! Their campaign page on indiegogo dot com is: projects/supernatural-the-parody-musical/x/13051454#/

Also... OMG, I wasn't actually intending to spend so many of these prompts torturing Dean...

 **#4 Last**

Sam had fallen asleep next to him on the couch, probably from all the eggnog. Feeling suddenly oddly sentimental, Dean had to resist the urge to pet him. He hadn't expected the memories their half-assed improvised Christmas had brought to actually make him feel nostalgic about their childhood – after all, their Christmases had been pretty rubbish. Even so, with his impending descent to Hell almost anything before he had sold his soul looked like sunshine and roses. He found himself longing for those years when all they had to do was stay safe. It had been a very long time since Dean had had keeping himself safe anywhere on his 'to do' list and, frankly, it sounded like pure luxury now. Sure, their childhood was probably more dangerous than that of most kids and Dean was certainly held responsible for a lot of things but there was still a sense of security in having a 'superhero' father who was maybe a little rough sometimes but who knew everything and could come fix your messes.

This was probably what Dad would see this as, he realised – a mess Dean had cooked up. After all, they were only here because he'd failed to protect Sam in the first place. The memory emerged unbidden – Sam's lifeless body, the blood, his own pathetic, panicked pleas… It seemed like he'd spent most of his life trying to compensate for messing up and disappointing Sam and Dad, at least this time the price he was going to pay was big enough that he could maybe stop feeling guilty. Except he still felt guilty because even he could tell Sam was devastated at the idea of losing him. There was a bittersweet sense of relief that came with that but mostly it added to Dean's anxiety when he worried about leaving his brother all alone. Several times in the past month it was almost like he'd seen little Sammy again – his baby brother, still bright-eyed and trusting, the kid who'd once thought the world of Dean. It was so damn ironic because he'd said to himself more than once that he'd give anything to get that back and it seemed like the universe had finally come up with just the thing to ask of him.

And now it was their last Christmas and it was…

It was making him want to cry, rage and lie down and never get up again all at the same time.

Because he should have tried much harder to make all those previous Christmases better so that this wouldn't look like such a sad, last-ditch attempt.

Because he didn't want to have a last Christmas. He didn't want to have a last anything.

Because he could be brave if all he had to do was die – dying only took a certain amount of time and then it was over – but this was an eternity in Hell he was facing and he was terrified out of his mind and he wanted his Dad but his Dad was in Heaven and Dean would never get there.

Because he didn't want to leave a life in which he had Sam, and Sam clearly cared, and maybe even needed him a little.

He reached for his brother again but checked himself and retracted his hand. He was remembering the time when they'd been young enough that he could hug Sam and pretend he was comforting him instead of the other way around but the last thing he needed was for Sam to wake up and think he was being groped by a weird pervy older brother. Besides, if he kept thinking about them as children he'd have a mental breakdown soon and Sam would probably find him in the morning rocking in the corner with his boxers on his head.

He set about drawing reindeer antlers on Sam's forehead with a sharpie instead as the last minutes of their last Christmas trickled quietly away into oblivion.


	5. 5 Cool

**#5 Cool**

Dean's heart has just started sinking as Lisa glares at him one last time and drags her son away from him when the kid tugs free and runs back. Little arms tighten around his middle and Dean can't suppress a slightly guilty spark of victory. He shouldn't feel gleeful, he really shouldn't. It's not his place to give advice to any child and he's probably damn near the worst possible example a little boy could have. Trouble is, he can't help himself.

 _He thinks I'm cool,_ Dean thinks as Ben looks up and thanks him.

It reminds him of when Sam was little and thought his brother was cool, too. Their father has always had this ' _my job is not to make you like me_ ' philosophy but try as he might Dean has never been able to embrace it. He wants to be liked. He's never quite managed to make himself order his little brother around too much and he remembers breaking the rules a number of times just to see a grin on his face. He remembers thinking ' _when I have kids…_ '. In the end, Sam ran away from both of them so the only difference is in the memories. Dean thinks it's been worth it – being a bit naughty sometimes in exchange for his brother's acceptance and admiration, short-lived though it may have been. He thinks it's worth it now, too, because for a brief stolen moment which he knows he has no right to, Ben is his.


End file.
